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Readings: How Our Alt-Misunderstanding of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty Screwed Us For Alt-Life

Free us from the shackles of big government–as long as our minds our servants of Trump./Image: Licensed Adobe stock, Sondem.

Text-based greetings, Alt-reading lovers!

How delightful to find you among the wood-pulp-y, musty fragrance of old books mingled with the wood-pulp-y, manufacturing chemicals scents of new ones. It’s a heady combination, indeed! Of course, in order for something to be truly woozy-making, one has to have a head, the organ that’s affected when a person feels lightheaded. More specifically, there has to be some gray matter rattling around in the temples-confined space known in medical circles as the noggin. And even dumb-asses of the highest order, like we contemporary conservatives, can’t be delusional enough to think that we’ve got a whole lot going on in that department. Of course, that was true of the human species pre-Trump. The post-Trump Era has taught us that there is no bottom to certain abysses of dunderheadedness. What a proud, proud people we are!

And: A BIG thing we all have in common is we’re all mutts!

Speaking of being morons…now, we aren’t a people who give much thought to anything we think, say, or do. We just kind of think, say, and do. People use to actually put some mental energy into their life projects, apparently. One such awesome human was the philosopher John Stuart Mill. He wrote On Liberty, an essay on the proper province of government in human affairs. He made the bold assertion, which informs the entire democratic experiment known as the U.S. of A.–you know,  the one that we’re actively destroying as the Party of Trump–that a government can never rightly compel those it governs from doing or not doing anything because it would be in his/her best interests. All of life, Mill argued, is fierce independence, conscious self-direction, and I’m-a-big-kid-and-I-can-decide-what-to-do. He wrote:

“That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others, Mill wrote his treatise on the founding principle he felt should give all governments its one and only raison d’etre  There were so many qualifications of this essential principle, such as that the state has the right to determine who is of the right mind to make a decision about who can with just cause control them. It can, for example, determine who is young or old enough to exercise his or her free will. Scarcely anyone, least of all the dolts like us who populate the right wing of contemporary North American politics.”

Related: How to decorate your home to be a haven for your Puddle (vs. Snowflake) self.

Extreme much? Republican whining about The Deep State, political correctness, and even we-need-guns-to-protect-us-from-the-government just drips out of Mill’s argument. Of course. he was learned, erudite, and deeply intelligent, extracting his arguments from subtle, textured understanding of history, humanity, and how-things-work. We, on the other hand, just wanna be dicks. And mission accomplished, so, good for us. We want to stand with our legs planted further than shoulder width apart with our hands placed brattily on our hips being contrarian just cuz we ain’t got nothin’ better to do. If only we Alt-understood that Mill attached a ton of caveats to his subtle–if sparsely argued,–world-changing essay. Even with the many stipulations he put on the rights of free people, it strikes one as naive in light of what we now know about the complete and utter lunacy of which home sapiens are capable, given the behavior of anyone who officially or unofficially puts an “R” after their name. If you can’t act like an adult, you can and will be treated like an insolent kiddo. KAt their best kids are magical, wondrous beings, full of light, laughter, and love, make no mistake. But have you left one at home unattended before?

You’ll come home, in case you need to be told, to crayon all over the walls, toilet paper littering the floor, and filth covering every inch of your once sparkling castle. Good luck with that. Children–much like Alt-rugrat adults, act out because they want structure. If you’re seriously naive and stupid enough to think the Trump Era is anything but a giant, Christan-white-heterosexist temper tantrum….well, then I can’t help you, my little conservative charges. I bet no one can, and you’re going to have horrific collective lives. You couldn’t resist denying you needed help, it’s clear. You’ve had so very, very many chances to grow the hell up and realize that you have zero idea what you’re doing. Not only is no one going to feel sorry for you as your entire existences crash and burn like a train off a mountainside, you’ve made us all suffer so mightily that we’ll have a little Resistance Party, completely with the Liberal Loony Dance of Glee, at your cultural wake. Don’t even try to fix stuff now. Nope. It’s. Way. Too. Late. You’re not even grounded. You’re simply done, finished, kaput. It’s pretty awful and pathetic, not gonna lie.

But there’s no hope left. Keep whining about oh you gotta do this and the gubbermint can’t do that. As Dr. Sweeney asks Derek in American History X: “Has anything you’ve done actually made your life better?” It’s hard to know when you’re born into so much privilege being Americans in 2018, you’ve had it pretty good anyway. Now you’ll never know if your lives could have been good, because you chose a cultural suicide with President Donald J. Trump with his hand on the trigger of the gun pointed at your temple–the wonderfully empty body part we talked about earlier–so spectacular, unprecedented, and frankly, torture to watch, your only hope is that for some Phoenix-like resurrection. That assumes there’s some kernel of goodness to bring back to life, of course. Guess we’ll see about that whole part.

By this time next week, I expect you, readers to have read exactly nothing. It’s a dangerous activity unless you have a tyrannical guide like me by your side, because then I can be sure you’ll get out of the act of book-browse only what I wish you too. See you then!

Also: Get some fun recipe ideas for Shaking It Up for the Sake of It Shakes.

We at Spread Your Right Wings generally don’t like people, the Internet, or interacting with people on the Internet. Seek out someone—in person—to talk to and laugh with about this article. Check back with us as we continue to mock the right wing. Follow us on Twitter at @worstaltlife join our Facebook group, and follow us on Instagram at @worstaltlife. If you simply must get in touch with us, DM us through our Facebook group. Also, please, please see the disclaimer in our About section.

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